Carl Harris with his thoughts on the EU referendum results, the betting and other views on the Post Brexit Betting Markets…

Will Boris Johnson Be the First Post Brexit Prime Minister?

The bookies got things spectacularly wrong in the EU Referendum. Just like the 2015 General Election the polls and the bookies were wrong! The bookies, all of them, every firm, made Remain the long odds-on favourites for the EU Referendum. They claimed their odds were better indicators than polls that were veering all over the place. Remain was always 1-3 or thereabouts. Never was there a doubt remain would win. No Brexit!

Ladbrokes said after that they were not there to make predictions, but to make money and they claimed they did nicely out of it. Nigel Farage of course had £1000 on with Ladbrokes and he did OK thank you. But the bookmakers have spent years claiming they are the ones to listen to, but now they claim they are not, they should be politicians!

The head of political betting for Ladbrokes spoke to the Independent after the vote. “I see no evidence that the betting was deliberately “manipulated” by big money,” he insisted.

But as he had earlier explained to The Independent, one problem with betting was the vast amount of wishful thinking that went on. And in this contest, he said: “I think there’s something to be considered in the fact that the most affluent sections of society were generally behind Remain.

“Maybe there just aren’t enough dispassionate investors out there to correct that possible bias, even in a multi-million pound market like the EU Referendum.”

I think they should just say we got it wrong and the polls got it wrong. I personally think that everything was done to get a remain vote but the strength of feeling is so great they all got it WRONG. I believe it was down to one thing, LONDON!

The map above is simplistic BUT it shows you by region who voted to remain – Yellow and who voted to leave- Blue. There were pockets of difference within each region, for example York voted remain but as a whole the region was for Brexit, but this is used to illustrate the point i want to make. London voted to remain and was not representative of the rest of England and Wales.

The London Bubble..

Across all 33 boroughs in the capital, 59.9% (2.26 million) voted in favour of remaining in the EU. In some areas, the remain vote was more than 70%. London is now completely different to the rest of the UK, both culturally and economically. Of course the politicians, the pollsters the media and the bookmakers (in the main) are based in, yes you got it, London. So people are living in a bubble that is not representative of the rest of the country. Therefore those forming and reporting opinion, making odds and reflecting the “mood” are doing so of their London bubble. As the results show they got it wrong!

It was a remarkable result, you can blame the campaigns, the lies, etc. Personally the one thing that struck me most was that politicians (on all sides) clearly think the voting public are a set of idiots. Some of the claims made during the campaign were ridiculous! There was no question though, remain had it!

Even Nigel Farage himself conceded defeat as the polls closed! There was such a strong view that remain had won. The bookies had a poll showing 57% remain. Guess what, 57% of London voted remain!

Whatever you think of Nigel Farage he has been quite entertaining and the very fact that the UK held a Brexit vote is in many ways down to him. They will one day make a movie about Farage I am sure. The speech he gave in the EU Parliament was actually very funny…(Watch on Youtube)

18-34 Spoiled it for Themselves…

Farage is a marmite figure and the young remain voters blame him and of course Boris Johnson for the Brexit. There is also a view that has been peddled about, on social media, by the young generation that it was the older people who screwed up the outcome they wanted, remain. The reality is shown in these figures:

All the data that is coming out shows a really low turn out amongst the 18-24 age group. The UK turnout was 70%+ but only around 40% of that age group bothered voting. I saw some data that said, if turn out was the same amongst the young as it was nationally remain would have won, and won comfortably. So being blunt, they messed it up for themselves all by themselves!

It was The North That Won It!

Looking at the voting data by region, it was the North that won it! The North of England who voted leave changed the political future of Britain and perhaps popped the London bubble! No question of that, but the Brexit result has raised many questions.

Here are just a few Questions Resulting from The Brexit Vote:

Who will succeed David Cameron as Tory leader and therefore Prime Minister

Will there be a general election in 2016 and who will win it?

Will there be a second EU referendum?

WIll there be a second Scottish referendum and what will the result be?

The bookies are split between Boris Johnson and Theresa May, but Boris is the majority favourite and having lead the Brexit campaign to victory there is no question he has popular appeal, This will not have gone unnoticed by the Tory membership, 150,000 of whom will be selecting the new UK PM. I personally have no doubt one of these two will win, forget the rest, but which one?

For me I think BORIS JOHNSON is a MAX BET to be the next Tory leader and PM and at 5/4 he is good value. Reports are on Wednesday he has 100 Tory MP’s behind him and if so he will go on and face Mrs May in a ballot of the members and I expect him to win comfortably. The latest odds are HERE

There can be no second referendum, it would question democracy and would be political disaster and too great a risk for any PM to call, look what happened to Cameron. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas afterall!

Carl Harris POST BREXIT Political Betting Predictions:

Boris Johnson will win the Conservative leadership contest and be the next PM

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